Newfoundland shrimp waste utilization and dispersant generation

Abstract

This research focused on the utilization of Newfoundland shrimp waste as a premium and low-cost nitrogen source for microbial growth through an enzymatic hydrolysis process. In addition, the enzymatically hydrolyzed shrimp waste was used to generate a green dispersant for crude oil dispersion in seawater. During the enzymatic hydrolysis process, an integration of response surface methodology and artificial neural network was proposed for the first time for modeling and optimization of shrimp waste hydrolysis. The utilization of shrimp waste for microbial growth was also achieved. The hydrolysis process was further optimized using the dispersant effectiveness (DE) as the response to generate a green shrimp waste based dispersant. The functional properties of the hydrolyzed product were examined. The DE and acute toxicity of the generated dispersant were evaluated. A comparison of the generated dispersant with Corexit 9500 on dispersing three types of crude oil was conducted. This research provided a promising methodology of shrimp waste management and a potential option for oil spill response.